How to Look Happy (35 page)

I can feel my mouth opening and closing, trying to make words come out. When they finally do, I don’t say any of the most important things I’m thinking. Instead I say, “The Paris trip. That’s…” My brow furrows as I glance at the date on my laptop screen. “Shouldn’t that be happening right about now?”

In past years, Candace and I have made our big buying trips in early September. I’ve been so busy that I haven’t really thought about it, but it occurs to me that I haven’t heard any discussion of the trip in weeks.

“Candace canceled it,” Rachael says. “I…I figured she’d have told you. With her divorce and with Ellie Kate leaving… She said it wasn’t a good time for her to go.”

“I haven’t talked to Candace in weeks,” I say. “Months, it feels like. You know, I only work here.” I smile at my weak attempt at a joke, but the anxious look doesn’t leave Rachael’s face.

“She told you I turned down the partnership?” I ask. I peer closely at her, trying to discern whether she’s lying, but Rachael looks genuinely confused.

She stares at me for a few long seconds, agape. And then she finally sinks onto the chair I brought over for her. “You mean, you didn’t?”

We continue eyeing each other in disbelief. Finally I mutter, “What has that woman been
up to
?”

“God, I’m sorry,” Rachael says. “All this time I thought you were pissed at me because you’d changed your mind about France after your wedding—” She cuts off with a gurgling sound and then continues in a meeker tone. “Got called off.” She looks at me. “Sorry.”

I wave a hand in the air, dismissing it. “Don’t worry about it,” I say. “It was for the best. Trust me.” I lean forward, folding my arms on my desktop. “She
really
told you I turned down the partnership?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Huh.” I have to get to the bottom of this now more than ever. Candace pitting my closest colleague at the firm against me somehow feels like her lowest blow, lower even than screwing me over by screwing Brewster.

I shake my head for a long time, processing this information. Finally, I lean back to shut down my laptop and start tidying up my workspace, feeling a sudden urge to escape this place. Rachael continues sitting in the rolling chair across from me, two lines in her forehead as if she’s in deep thought.

As she stands and starts to push her chair back toward the table, I say, “Rachael?”

She turns.

“I’m not mad at you one bit,” I say. “I owe you an apology as much as you owe me one, but I really don’t think any of this is our doing.”

She pushes the chair the remaining couple of feet and slides it under the table. When she turns toward me again, the cloud in her eyes has lifted. “I’m happy to hear you say that,” she says. “I’ve always appreciated how much you helped me when I started working here.”

“You’re great to work with,” I say with a shrug. She nods and starts toward her desk, but something is still bothering me. “Rachael?” I say again.

She stops and spins on her heel, one eyebrow raised.

“You
are
cut out for this,” I say. “You’re a damn good designer. Don’t let Candace or these past few months here make you think otherwise. You’re going to kill it at your new company.”

She grins at me, taking big steps backward, almost skipping.

“Thanks.”

*  *  *

That evening I’m sitting on my sofa with Simon curled into my side, indulging in a DVR marathon of
Real Housewives of New York
, when my cell starts to chirp on the table in front of me.

Annoyed for no real reason except the fact that I’m comfy, all snuggled under my favorite chenille blanket, I lurch forward and grab it. When I see the number on the screen, my heart leaps into my throat.

Candace.

“No freaking way,” I say out loud as I fumble to accept the call. At the same time, I’m scrambling to find the mute button on the remote.

When she responds to my anxious hello, she sounds tired.

“Hello, Jennifer,” she says. “I got your message.” There’s a pause that’s so long and silent that I can hear Simon breathing on the sofa, though I’m no longer sitting on it. I start to pace the room, reaching up with one hand and raking it through my loose and messy hair. I hold it there at the top of my head, as if to keep it from exploding.

“I’ve been expecting you to call,” she finally says.

“Where have you been?” I demand. “I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, since you never bother to show up anymore, but your company is falling down around you. Rachael’s about to quit, Carson’s scared she’s not going to be able to feed her family, and people all over the city are talking…”

My voice trails off, but I can feel that I’m just getting started. I can’t believe I’ve lived in such reverential fear of this woman. Right now she seems meek, and weak, and so unworthy of respect. And for some reason, that makes me even angrier—that she dares to be weak
now
, when the going is tough. I think about Ellie Kate and Quinn, Carson and Brice, and Rachael…hardworking, fretful Rachael, who’s simply been trying to stay out of the way of two warring forces, to the detriment of her own hard-fought career.

I see that now, that this has been a war. A war where Candace held all the strategy cards, but a war I’ve been fighting nonetheless. This phone call, this lifeless Candace with her dull, tired voice and all the fight gone out of her, feels like a concession, a white flag.

“I’ve…” She trails off, falls silent for several more seconds. “I’ve made some mistakes.”

I keep quiet, waiting.

“That’s it?” I say finally, lifting my hand from my blonde locks and flinging it into the air. I’m shaking my head, feeling one screw shy of coming unhinged. “No. No, that’s
not
it. You owe me some answers. You owe all of us some answers.”

She sighs then, a long, shuddering thing that, if I weren’t so worked up right now, might evoke pity. But I refuse to feel sorry for her.

I’ve stopped pacing and am standing, taut, in front of my fireplace.

“You’re right,” she says. “I know you’re right.” Her voice is an iota stronger, and I brace myself for more fight when she adds, “You might want to sit down.” It’s a hint of the old Candace, the commander in chief, the bully in coral lipstick.

“I’m all right,” I say in a wry tone.

“Okay.” Her voice is unsure again. “Well, I suppose the first thing you should know is the firm’s been under an audit.”

I’m nodding. It’s a start. “Already heard that through the grapevine, Candace. You know it’s not possible to keep secrets in a design community as small as ours. The question I have is
why
?”

I can feel her stunned silence through the buzzing phone connection.

“Well…” she starts again. “When Caroline bought out of the business, I brought Dan in as a partner, to help me manage the books. I gave him access to the firm’s accounts.” I hold my breath through several more seconds of silence. “I know it was stupid,” she spits out in a rush. “But he’s got such a head for business. He successfully started up and sold off three companies for profit.”

I feel my eyes roll involuntarily. I’m not interested in ex-husband number three’s Boy Scout résumé. Or in Candace’s impressive ability to link herself with cunning executives. Apparently this time, the con was on her.

“Why didn’t you turn the finances over to Carson?” I ask. “She has a business degree. Or why didn’t you talk to Rachael? You know she has a background in accounting.” I take a sharp breath, deciding to let the bull out of the gate. “And why didn’t you ask me to partner with you when Caroline pulled out?”

I take another deep breath and hold it.

Again, she’s quiet for so long that I start to feel pissed all over again. I exhale loudly.

“I know,” she says. “I know. On all of it, trust me, I know.” She sounds like she’s choking on the words. “This isn’t easy for me to say to you, Jennifer. None of it. But…” She pauses for another beat. “I was scared, okay? I could feel it all slipping away from me, my touch with the clients, my ability to keep up with all these changes, what with the internet, and the blogging. The Interest, or the Pinterest, or whatever it is. Things were just changing too fast. I felt like, if I lost my grip on the business, I’d never get it back.”

She sighs, on a roll now. “Hell, I should have just sold the place off and followed Caroline to France. I could be sipping Bordeaux right now, enjoying my early retirement and everything I’ve built. Instead I’m sitting here facing bankruptcy, with yet another failed marriage, and the business in complete shambles.”

My brain is stuck on the word
bankruptcy
. I feel numb and weak with relief that my clients’ money seems to be safe.

“Bankruptcy?” I repeat. “Candace, business has been strong. What the hell happened to put Greenlee Designs into bankruptcy?”

“We’re not bankrupt. Yet,” she says. “But
Dan
happened.” She spits out his name. “I assume you know he cheated on me?”

She pauses as if the question isn’t rhetorical, and so I answer, “I’d maybe heard that, yes.”

“Not just once either. Who knows how many women he…well, anyway. So, he was away a lot, I assumed on business, but I should have been smarter than that. It turns out he was in Vegas half the time he was away, and the rest of it he was in Tunica.” She says the last word as if it tastes bad. “Sleeping with God knows what and gambling away my life savings and the firm’s profits.” She pauses. “Apparently he’d already gambled away his own investments, so he married me for mine.”

I’d been pacing again, but now I’m stunned into stillness, staring out my open front window into the darkened street, not seeing anything. “God,” is all I’m able to say.

“I’m suing the pants off of him. Don’t you worry,” she adds. “The problem is, he doesn’t have anything left to take. And I don’t have much left to fight with.” She emits a hard chuckle, and I finally understand what she wanted with Brewster and how she was attempting to pay for his services.

My mouth is set in a grim line as I picture Brewster’s smug, smarmy presence. Fucking bastard.

“I’m stuffing dead fish in Brewster’s curtain rods,” I say in a spontaneous burst, my anger outrunning my brain. He’d never find the source of the stink. It’d be so bad he’d have to move out of a house he would never, ever sell.

But then I remember Aubrey, and I clamp my lips shut again.

Candace is still chuckling.

“Thanks,” she says, knowing I’m full of it. “And don’t worry,” she adds. “I’m not letting any of this mess take you down with it. I’ve made sure the firm has been able to foot the bills for your work and Quinn’s. Rachael, I’m afraid, hasn’t been billing enough to worry about.”

I’m washed with a new sensation of relief, even stronger now that I have confirmation from Candace herself that my clients’ money is safe. I sink to the ottoman, feeling like a deflated balloon.

After another long moment, she adds, “I’m afraid I can’t say the same for your continued employment. You’re going to need to find a new place to conduct your business. Greenlee Designs won’t be servicing clients much longer.” Her voice is drenched with so much sorrow and pain that I finally allow the pity I’ve been pushing off to settle onto my shoulders.

“I’m sorry,” I say simply.

“I know,” she replies. “You’ve been a good employee, darling. A real asset for the firm. If only I hadn’t been too proud to see it.”

To my own shock, a tear tips off my lower lashes and slides down my cheek. “That means a lot to hear,” I say. “Thank you.”

There doesn’t seem to be much more to say, so I’m trying to figure out how to extricate myself from the conversation when she adds, in a tentative voice, “And Jennifer?”

“Yes?”

“I’m sure this goes without saying, but can we please keep all of this between us? I’ll pull the others together soon to announce an exit strategy once I form it.”

My mind turns to my godforsaken Facebook post, which feels one hundred times more vindictive now that I know the motivation behind Candace’s betrayal. Of course, I never meant to harm her…or even post it in the first place. Still, I’m sheepish when I answer.

“Absolutely,” I say. “You can trust me to not breathe a word.”

“I know I can, darling. Thank you.”

A Fitting Partnership

I fall asleep on the couch that night with the TV on, Simon curved into my side. After hanging up with Candace, I was too spent to move—even to call Carrie, the one person I
will
share Candace’s revelations with.

I wake up at 4:30 with a jolt of leftover panic from my tense afternoon and from the intensity of this week in general. I move to my bed—luckily before Candace called I was already clad in pajama pants and glasses, my contacts out, so I’m able to crawl right under the covers—but sleep eludes me.

I have another big day ahead.

For one thing, I’m meeting Calliope Redwing to walk through the law-firm space and get a grasp on the scope of the project. For another, I have to contact Amanda and find out if she’s interested in tackling the Redwing project along with me. Her partnership offer is a no-brainer now that I’m in immediate need of a home base for my work. I finally feel in control of my career again, but I’m still not interested—yet—in going it alone.

Plus, I want to take a vacation. I’ve always wanted to see England, and the thought of visiting Adam and Jane and Braxton in person makes me feel almost giddy. I start planning in my head, mental Post-its with notes about side-tripping it to France for a quick buying trip (can’t totally take the drive out of me; it’s just built-in) and seeing if Mom and Dad or maybe Mom and Christine and Eleanor are up for joining me. We could make it a girls’ trip.

Thinking about London inevitably makes me think about Todd and his sound advice that I’ll “never get that time back.” That makes me think about the last item on my agenda today, and in my mind, it’s the biggest.

Tonight is the grand opening gala at Sweeties. Todd will be there with Annalise.

And I’ll have to watch them together and make small talk with them and pretend like I’m not head over heels for the man whose advances I repeatedly snubbed.

Because I am.

Head over heels, that is.

Every time I think of him—which is quickly becoming all the time, even with everything else going on—I get all bubbly and fizzy and teenager-y inside. I haven’t felt this way in years…maybe even a decade. I’m sure I never felt this way about Jeremy. Jeremy and I, we just made sense. We looked so good on paper, even in the beginning, that I let that fill my vision and turned it into something resembling love.

Not that I’m in love with Todd
. I quickly reason with myself.
That’s ridiculous—I barely know him.

It’s just that, there’s something magnetic in him that’s pulling at me wherever I am. I’ve been resisting it, but after all I’ve been through in the past few weeks, I really can’t remember why. Too worried about “how things would look,” I guess.

Go figure.

Willing myself to forget about him, to erase the image of his clear blue eyes from behind my heavy lids, I drag my weary body to the bathroom and flip on the light and then the shower. It’s still pitch-dark outside, and no sane person begins work before the sun peeks out from the horizon, but still.

I’ve got a lot to do. Might as well get started.

*  *  *

“Well, there we have it,” Amanda Jossamon-Barnes says. She looks pleased as wedding punch.

As well she should be. I’m doubling her business in one fell swoop. Bringing on a huge new client after my meeting with Calliope at Jameson, Jameson & Pflug. We hit it off so instantly that I knew even before she told me that I’d landed the job.

Bringing on an international celebrity with Amelia and Noah—Amelia called this morning to tell me she’d received emails from
Elle Decor
,
Lonny,
and
Architectural Digest
after word got out about the closing of her home purchase, all wanting to be first to unveil her new digs. As soon as the public records released on the real estate transaction, they were instantly tweeted…the world we now live in.

Thanks to Amelia, my work is going to be published. Really, truly, internationally published. And I’ve yet to even start the job.

“There we have it,” I repeat, smiling back at her. Amanda is warm and open and gregarious—the stellar opposite of my former boss and, I have a feeling, all the makings of a great partner. It’s going to take some getting used to, this idea of being a boss instead of having one.

Which reminds me…

“Oh yeah, one more thing.”

“What’s that?” Amanda asks, still smiling.

“I can’t agree to any of this unless I can bring Quinn Cunningham along with me. And if there’s room, I know a wonderful office manager who’s already well-connected with all of your suppliers.”

My mind flits to Brice, wondering if I should lump him into the deal, but I have a sneaking suspicion he’s going to hang on to Candace’s coattails, wherever they land her next.

Amanda is nodding, slowly, her eyes wide. “I think that’s only fair,” she says. She glances around us, taking in her small shop, which is set back into an urbane strip center, and I do the same. Floor-to-ceiling windows flank the entry, allowing passersby to glimpse window displays outfitted as full rooms, with clean-lined furnishings and bold accessories that reflect the relaxed contemporary aesthetic Amanda and I share.

Deeper into the space, walls are hung with original art for sale by Memphis artists. Other walls are lined with shelves weighed down with samples of fabrics, wallpapers, hardware…the familiar trimmings of our world and a backdrop that already feels like home. Round tables, like the one Amanda and I are seated around now, fill small alcoves throughout the space, which opens onto a central reception desk, a larger worktable, and finally a private back office.

“We might need to expand one of these days,” she says, still looking around. And then she swings her gaze back to me. “You know, the bay beside us turns over a lot. Maybe we’ll be able to snag it too.” Her eyes are sparkling, and it’s hard not to share her enthusiasm, especially hearing her already use the word “we.”

“First things first,” I laugh. “I’m too busy to even think about doing anything other than going over the paperwork and moving in.”

“Ooh, I’m so excited.” Amanda claps her hands together the way my niece Charlotte does when she spots a Disney princess. When we both stand, she reaches toward me and pulls me in for a hug.

As she releases me, I giggle.

“What is it?” she asks.

“It’s just that, you’re not what I’m used to.” The idea of hugging Candace is as foreign and, if I’m being honest, as repulsive, as the idea of hugging Meryl Streep in character for
The Devil Wears Prada
.

“No disrespect intended here, but I hope you mean that in a good way.”

I grin along with her. “I mean that in a very good way.”